Wanko-Net Portal

Welcome back to this wonderful little corner of the internet! It's been a good bit of time since my last post, and I have a lot more to share since that time. Some good, some intriguing. It's genuinely been an interesting month or so.

So the first thing on my list of things to bring up is my art. I know that I had brought it up somewhat, and as the main focus on my last blog post in April, but I wanted to explain how that process was going and what I thought about it so far!

In short, I'm loving drawing!

I received my first ever Apple Pencil from a friend at my job and I have been in LOVE with it ever since using it for the first time. I had been using a copycat Apple Pencil for years, but it had no pressure sensitivity and was essentially a glorified stylus. This, of course, made doing the kind of artwork I wanted to do more difficult. I felt that it was all squarely on my own inability and lack of practice (which to be fair, a lot of it still is!). So when I switched to this Apple Pencil, it felt like everything changed. I went from barely being able to make something even remotely like how I thought of it in my head, to making stuff that I'm sometimes genuinely proud of. I feel at least a little more confident posting and sharing them of late because of this, so I will show some of them here and post them and more in my art section soon!

For my second talking point, I want to talk about neurodivergence. In my About section (which I will now be editing sometime today), I had put that I had been looking into the idea of getting an evaluation on my neurodivergence, at the behest of myself and my therapist (and my bf and friends!). The wild thing, I had recently helped my sibling with doing this exact same thing last year. The only problem was that it felt like it was a bit chaotic, and felt difficult to even find somewhere to test. So I decided that this time, I'd try to look more into things and find out if there was a different way to go about testing than us looking around for a place on our own. I called my state's Autism and Dsiability Center, and they were SO HELPFUL! I cannot stress to anyone considering an autism diagnosis to please contact your state's Autism non-profit or center, because they offered me multiple locations to call and also explained how to get my sibling started with applying for disability (which we had no idea how to do previously!).

With the information that they had provided me, I was able to get in contact with an equally nice psychology practice in town to attempt to get an evaluation. I got a call around the next day after leaving them a message and was pleased to find out they had just had a cancellation for the following Monday. For reference, the next available time would've been in SEPTEMBER so I was SO RELIEVED!!

The evaluation itself wasn't bad! It was a bit longer than the usual 5-6 hours, with mine taking closer to 7-8, because I had some difficulty understanding certain questions and taking my time with it. I made sure to wear comfy and not stimulating clothes, I was told to bring a snack so I brought Scooby Snax (a childhood fave!!), and mainly just answered lots of bubble-in questions and did a few cognitive ability tests (like organizing blocks in certain patterns, or word association). After everything was largely done, they had me talk to the psychologist himself, who conducts a short interview with me. But, I brought a 30-page document detailing EVERYTHING in my life that I thought was not neurotypical of me. And he explained that, not only am I not the first person to do so, but also that it basically explained and answered everything he would normally ask me, so he just asked why I looked into it and what made me think I had autism or ADHD. I simply explained that everything my sibling was diagnosed as autistic for, were things that I equally do. And the issues I have been having lately at my jobs in regards to burnout has made me worry about how long and how often I can be in steady occupations without some understanding or accomodation from my employers. With all of that, he eventually told me that he wanted to let me know outright what his diagnosis was for me before sending me on so that I didn't have to wait for the full write up, and told me what he thought.

I AM AUDHD BABYYYY!

I was both surprised and also not surprised. Most of my friends and therapists had assumed I had BEEN diagnosed with ADHD and just looking into whether I also had Autism, but I hadn't been officially tested for either before! It was also this weird sensation of closure of understanding. I could fully understand why I do things the way I do them, and that sometimes the issues that I have with doing things are not the result of "laziness" or "lack of discipline," it's because of having disabilities that hinder my ability to do certain things at certain times. I don't have to feel ashamed for being unable to do certain jobs or certain activities because of my lack of object permanence or issues with executive function, I just need to be honest and ok with myself. And with this diagnosis, I feel that, at least somewhat now. I had been in the process of trying to unmask, being less afraid of being myself, openly engaging with my hyperfixations, being open about my issues with memory, or recall, or just basic communication! I am, each day, becoming closer and closer to more fully understanding how my brain has worked all these years, and it really feels like a mystery that has finally been revealed to me. Not to mention, I also have had significant Imposter Syndrome in regards to autism and ADHD, especially before having a diagnosis. While I am fully fully supportive of self-diagnosis due to the social and economic barriers many neurodivergent people have with acquiring an official diagnosis, (but also due to the large amount of women (both cis and trans) that go under or misdiagnosed regularly due to not showing the "telltale" signs of autism and ADHD that were primariily descriptors of how autistic and ADHD boys would present), I felt that I was "unfit" to claim myself as disabled when I know that so so many people have situations that are vastly more noticeable and hindering than mine are. And I know that that is self-reductive on myself, but I do battle with Imposter Syndrome in multiple ways in my life, so it really was just an extension of it into my questions of disability. But with this diagnosis, I have been able to successfully quash that voice in my head, and with that, feel even more at peace in regards to my disabilities :3

For my third topic of discussion, I have my car. While technically happening around the time of the last blog post in April, nothing had been fully finalized. Essentially, my previous car (which was also my first car ever!) blew up for a SECOND time! After a year of it still not working fully from the LAST time it blew up, it became too unreliable. So thankfully, my family decided to take the car for themselves to use, and I went and got a much better car at a local dealership that offered a wildly good deal on a cute little car that looks LEAGUES better than my old car. I've even decided to decorate it to match the car and my own cute stylings! ^^ But it is so so soooo much better! It's better on gas, better on drive, and it just looks so cute! I get lots of "your car is so cute!!" comments and I actually feel proud to own a car now? Like I have never felt that before!

I just had to talk about it because I am just so in love with this car. Getting a car for its cuteness factor is surprisingly worth it, at least for me! It makes me wanna take care of it more!

But yeah! Those are my updates for the most part from this month! I know it's been probably a HEFTY read, but if you read even just a small amount of it, I appreciate it! :3 I just like speaking my piece out into this little spot on the internet, and if someone happens to listen and think it's interesting, then that's cool. If not? That's cool too! It's the ability to display this information and send it off into the sea that makes having a site like this so fun!